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Survey Explores Impact of Social Media and Big Data Analytics on Business

Analytic data solutions firm Teradata, in co-operation with social intelligence solutions and analytics provider Mzinga (News - Alert), has conducted a survey on the use of social technologies and big data analytics in business. Other participants in this study include Teradata Aster and the Center for Complexity in Business (CCB) at the University of Maryland.

According to Teradata (News - Alert), the primary goal of this study was to create an industry benchmarking report providing professionals with insight into the adoption, use and current state of social business software and big data analytics in businesses. The results of this survey were announced recently.

In a statement, commented William Rand, assistant professor and director, Center for Complexity in Business, "The survey results indicate that a wide variety of industries are interested in analytics and the power that analytics can provide them in making business decisions." He further added, "However, there seems to be a lack of knowledge of how to best implement analytics, and a lack of consistent support for analytics across different platforms. This indicates a strong market need for education and consistent implementation of world-class analytic systems."

The results indicate that 80 percent of survey respondents reported using social technologies in one or more areas of business, including marketing, employee collaboration, customer service and support and sales. The survey also found that the majority of businesses currently utilize social technologies. However, the results show that opportunities exist to attain maximum impact and greater ROI by developing customer and marketing strategies to target trust and influence in their business.

Other survey findings show that 49 percent of respondents are not using social technologies to their full potential, and only 12 percent of the respondents acknowledged that social technologies have helped them in their day-to-day roles and responsibilities.

Furthermore, the survey results show that greater emphasis is being placed on the impact of social technologies, and professionals are struggling to understand analytics and how to measure ROI and value in their business. Meanwhile, 75 percent of respondents do not measure ROI for their social business programs, while the majority of use occurs on a case-by-case basis.

Teradata said that this survey was conducted online in the spring of 2012 and drew more than 500 participants from a wide variety of professional disciplines and industries, including media, financial services, consulting, marketing, human resources, engineering, and others.

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